Tracing the Origin of the Sabbatical Calendar in the Priestly
Narrative (Genesis 1 to Joshua 5)

Philippe Guillaume

Abstract

This comprehensive study of the chronology of the Priestly
Document demonstrates that the Sabbatical calendar (364-day year) is not a
Qumran invention but was devised at the beginning of the Persian period (ca. 520
bce). The Priestly Document (Genesis 1 to Joshua 5) is divided into 7 eras:
creation, antediluvian, re-creation, exiles, Exodus, wandering, and rest in the
Promised Land. The large amount of chronological data contained in the narrative
describes each element of the Sabbatical calendar, the sacredness of which is
later upheld by the apocryphal books of Jubilees and Enoch and in Qumran texts.
In spite of subsequent additions of other calendars upon the original Priestly
Document, its narrative remains coherent enough to reveal the use of
intercalation.